Angel Creek 50 Miler race report

So, this is a really, really late race report. Here it is October, and this race was in July. But I've been thinking about it ever since. I wrote some parts of this post right afterwards, and some of it more recently. In some ways it was sort of difficult to write. But here goes.

On July 16, I ran the Angel Creek 50 mile race outside of Fairbanks, Alaska.  Some parts of it went really, really well. And some things just fell apart. Long story short, I scratched at mile 30.  But I'll give you the long story.

The Angel Creek 50 miler was my first ultra, and it was a doozy. The website says it has over 12,000 feet of elevation gain and loss, and it was right. I trained for it as much as I could, given work demands and family stuff. I had to squeeze training around real life. Luckily, my family seemed happy to ride their bikes alongside me when I ran occasionally, which let long training runs do double duty as family time. By the time of the race, I felt well prepared distance wise, but not so much as far as elevation goes. All of the mountain runs I had done had turned into mountain crawls. This race would be no exception.

I took off work the day before the race, and we all drove up to Fairbanks. We camped at Twin Bears Camp, which is at mile 30 of the Chena Hot Springs Road, and not coincidentally, where the race started. We figured (correctly) that staying at the same campground as the race start would make things much easier with an early start time. Twin Bears Camp has several rustic cabins and we were able to pick one that was about 20 feet from where the safety briefing, drop bag dropoff spot, and race start were located. The camp has a kitchen, where I was able to get everything sorted and my Camelbak filled. The only downside to staying at the camp is that all the beds were twin bunk beds, and sleeping in the same room as my husband but in a different bed was a little weird. Not that I slept much. It poured all night long, with great huge buckets of rain, thunder and lightening. I probably spent 3/4 of the night wondering if I would run if the weather was still that bad when I woke up. Luckily, it wasn't, so I didn't have to decide.

The first 15 miles or so was on dirt trails, with mostly rolling hills. Those miles went by pretty quickly, and I kept a good pace. I had figured out the average slowest possible pace to still make the cut off at mile 42, basically 18 minutes per mile. The first 15 miles, I averaged about 13 minutes per mile, and I felt pretty confident about making the cutoff. I knew there were some more difficult miles ahead, though, and kept pushing. I was pretty close to last, but through the first 15 miles, there were two other runners that I sort of leapfrogged with, Travis and Karen. When the terrain started getting steep, however, they pulled ahead for good.

After about mile 15, the trail quickly became steep and my pace slowed significantly. I really have trouble maintaining a decent pace going uphill. I knew this about myself already, though, which is why I worked hard early in the race to stay ahead of schedule. I climbed and climbed, and eventually the trail, such as it was, bounced along the tops of the domes (big round hills) for several miles. That was easier in the sense that I wasn't going up and up for long periods of time, but harder because of a couple of factors. One was that the trail essentially disappeared into a fairly barren landscape of unstable rocks and lichen. This made moving quickly difficult for an entirely different reason: uncertain footing. The other thing that made it difficult, and was decidedly the biggest factor in my DNF, was that up on top of the domes, it got FOGGY.

On top of the domes, where there was literally no trail, there were rock cairns meant to guide hikers/runners through the domes. In addition, the race crew placed little pink flags to mark the course:

I had a Garmin Vivosmart HR, but Travis had lent me his Garmin Fenix 2, which has GPS, and displays a map, with the race course already programmed in. However, we didn't meet up so that I could learn how to actually follow the little map. I was wearing it though, hoping that if I needed it, I could figure it out (this hope was in vain). I probably looked pretty silly though,  with a Garmin on each arm:

I managed fairly well until halfway through mile 23. There was no trail, and the fog had gotten really bad. I had been inching my way along looking for cairns or pink flagging. I got to the top of one hill, found a pink flag, and could not see another flag no matter which way I looked. I walked as far as I could in several directions without losing sight of the flag at the top of the hill, with no luck. I finally decided that the course probably kept going down the opposite side of the hill that it had gone up, and headed down, hoping to find a flag at some point. I didn't. After walking downhill for some time and not seeing a flag, I decided to go back to the top of the hill where I knew there was a flag, and try again. I had gotten almost back up to the top of the hill, and saw a dog coming towards me out of the fog, from across the hill to my left. I sidehilled in the direction the dog had come from, and found his people. They were the course sweepers. They were also picking up all the flagging and were heading down the hill I was going back up. They had already picked up the flag I was looking for.

I had been doing fine as far keeping myself under control and focused on the job until that point. But when I realized all that, I was just overwhelmed. Not only was I happy to see them, I also realized that if their dog hadn't found me, they would now have been ahead of me, REMOVING THE FLAGS I NEEDED TO FOLLOW. I would then have been well and truly lost. At that point, my throat completely closed up, I had to fight to not cry, and that was it. My confidence was gone.

I followed them the rest of the way through the domes and the fog. There were times that it took all 3 of us to find the flags, with one person standing as far as they could from a flag while still being able to see it, and another person going far enough that they could just barely see the person that could see the flag. Even with that, it still sometimessed took several minutes to find the next flag. There was no way I could have found my way through the rest of the domes by myself. The fog was just too dense. In addition,  by that time, I was exhausted mentally, and really struggled to keep going at all.  As we came closer to the checkpoint at mile 30, and down off the domes, the fog dissipated and at one point, the sun even came out. I really wished it had been  sunny for my trip across the domes. I think I would have done much better.

I got to the mile 30 checkpoint with about 2 hours to get to the mile 42 cutoff. If I had been running on a smooth surface, with fresh legs, I could have made it. On a rocky 4 wheeler track on tired legs, and a more tired brain, I knew I couldn't make it in time, so I decided to scratch. It turned out that Travis,  who at the start of the domes was only a few minutes ahead of me, but got to the mile 30 aid station an hour ahead of me, wound up missing the cutoff at mile 42 by one minute, so i'm pretty sure I could not have made it. In total there were 8 people that DNF'd.  I got a 4 wheeler ride down the trail to the road. Just the 4 wheeler ride took almost an hour. I got a ride to the finish, where my family was waiting. I was at the finish when Travis arrived. He reported that because of all the rain, the stretch of trail between  the mile 40 and mile 42 checkpoints had standing water up to his chest that he had to swim across. That made me sort of glad I didn't attempt it.

Only two things that I think should have been  managed differently.  First, more flagging!! That fog can get really dense! Second, the aid station volunteers had radios. And I really think the sweepers should have waited till everyone had checked into the aid station ahead before removing the flagging. If I hadn't found the sweepers, I would have needed that flagging to find my way out of the soup.

There were also things that I could have managed differently. I needed more practice on hills. And I need to work on navigating difficult terrain in general. I go really slowly when the footing is uncertain. I think I'm just pretty risk adverse. I think I need to work on building confidence so I can move more quickly across difficult terrain. That will just take time and practice.

Overall, it was really a fun race, at least the parts that I did. I think I would have done much better if the weather had cooperated. I really hope the weather will be better next year. I'm determined to finish next year.

Wednesday weigh in: Whoops...

So, not only is this Thursday, not Wednesday, I didn't even do a post last week at all. The last two weeks have been difficult, work has been crazy, I've been busy all the time, and not really taking care of myself. I did have some good runs, though!

1. Nutrition: in the toilet. So in the toilet that as of yesterday morning, I was back up to 145.4. That's ok though, I'm back at work on it. I'm looking forward to some forward progress to report on this front next week :)

2. Exercise: In 2 weeks, I managed 2 strength workouts, and 0 yoga sessions. I did run every day, though. In the last two weeks, I've ran almost exactly 60 miles. My longest run was 21.85 miles, at the Alyeska Mountain Run last Saturday. That was so much fun, and so painful!

3. Supplements: I actually did better at this. I've been getting at least my vitamins B, C, and D, calcium, and glucosamine almost every day. Fish oil a couple times. I need to force myself to take the fish oil more often. It's good for my connective tissue, and my IT band has been achy since the Alyeska run. Thanks, Daisy.

4. Sleep: So-so. I got less than 8 hours of sleep 6 nights out of the last 14. I know myself well enough that I function much better with a solid 8 hours, at least. Gotta work on this one more too.

So, there you have it. I think keeping track of how I'm doing like this will help me see trends long term, and what things I really need to focus on. And I definitely know what I need to do this week. Eat right and go to bed earlier!

Wednesday weigh in: week 1

I'm tired, so I'll get right to the point. This week was a bit... inconsistent.

1. Diet: I started out the week at 145. Yesterday morning, I was at 143.2 so not bad, not bad. The only really big thing I had that wasn't part of my plan, until yesterday was Red Robin one night with my hubby.  Those fries though!!!  Yesterday and today, though, I've been travelling for work, either driving or working non-stop. When I'm driving I eat. I use crunchy foods to help me stay awake and alert on long drives. So yesterday,  today, and tomorrow I am "off plan". And then I'm getting right back to it.

2. Exercise: I've got to break this into 2 types, running and other exercise. I've ran at least 1 mile every day, but I didn't get as many other workouts in as I wanted.

• Thursday: I did a short pover yoga podcast in the morning before work.  I also participated in a local 10k trail run. 
• Friday: I did a P90X3 workout DVD (Warrior, a full body strength workout) before work, and ran 1 mile on the treadmill after work. I knocked that baby out in 8:45, and was pretty happy with myself. That's the fastest I've run a mile in a long time.
• Saturday: my day did not go as planned. We spent most of the morning and early afternoon buying a wood stove. Then I had to go to work. By the time I got off work, it was about to rain, so I got in a quick 2 mile run before heading home.
• Sunday: 10 miles on the coastal trail with my pup. That was awesome.
• Monday: I slept in. No before work workout. Took a lunch break to run 4.2 trail miles, some much needed stress relief. 
• Tuesday: I had an early court hearing, so once again, no morning workout. I had to leave the house as soon as my kiddo got on the bus. I was travelling all day, in an area with lots of wilderness but virtually no trails. I managed to find one tucked away behind a National Forest visitors center, and got 1.8 miles in.
• Wednesday: I stayed at a B&B last night and didn't have an opportunity to workout, plus had to get an early start. Then worked until I got to my next hotel room at 8 pm, and managed to get one tired mile in before it got completely dark. Now I'm updating you guys, and hitting the sack. 

3. Supplements: I mostly got my Vitamin C and calcium in, because I keep themy on my desk in the form of gummies and chews. I only remembered the rest a couple times this week. 

4. Sleep: According to my Garmin, I only got less than 8 hours of sleep Sunday night and Monday night. I NEVER sleep well on Sundays. I need to work on that.

My goal for this week is to try to be a little more consistent.  The only thing I nailed every day is the running. But I've got a busy life, and I know better than to think I should be able to hit all these goals 100%. But I also know I can do a little bit better. 

On a scale of 1-10, this was at least a 9

My piece of Alaska has been pretty rainy recently. This has been one of those falls where you start thinking that it's going to rain until it snows. It does that some years. It rains and rains, then it freezes, and water keeps coming down out of the sky, first as freezing rain, then sleet, then finally snow. The bad part about that kind of fall is that the ground gets so saturated that we start getting big, huge puddles of rainwater everywhere, and things flood. And one day, the puddles and ponds of water freeze. Which means that some spring day, months later, they thaw. And things flood. Ugh.  It's been raining a lot this fall, almost every day recently. It's been driving me crazy.

On Sunday, I woke up, and it was SUNNY. The sky was blue, the birch trees outside my window were glowing in the sun, and I knew it was a perfect day for a longish run. I really wanted to run the Turnagain Arm trail before all the leaves fell, but I knew with all the rain it would be muddy. So I decided on my favorite paved trail around, the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. This trail runs around the west side of downtown Anchorage, along Cook Inlet, and the scenery is beautiful year round.

There's blue,blue sky and blue, blue water:

There's birch trees with leaves turning a golden yellow, bright in the sun:

There's bridges:

And airplanes, because the trail runs past the west end of the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport runways:

That's a lot of entertaining stuff to look at in one 10 mile run. So off Daisy and I went. We started at Westchester Lagoon (because there are port a potties) and my plan was to run to the 5 mile marker and back. The zero marker on this trail in both directions and the connecting Chester Creek trail is at Westchester Lagoon. So if I ran to the 5 mile marker and back, that would be 10 miles.

We made it to about mile 4.3, and saw this mama moose:

(The bit of asphalt you see inches from Mama is the trail I was on)

See how close to the trail she is? She was calm and eating when we arrived, so normally I might have gone past her, but it turned out her baby was on THE OTHER SIDE of the trail, and to get past her, I would have had to walk between her and her baby, with a very excited dog jumping around and barking. As I stood there considering, with a couple of cyclists who had come up within a few seconds of me, Mama Moose started looking at the dog and put her ears back, and was looking much less mellow. Then I remembered that I only planned to run to the 5 mile marker and turn around, so in another 15 minutes, I would be right back in the same spot again but this time with the moose between me and getting home. I decided to turn around early and head back, and then run past Westchester Lagoon another .7 miles or so, before turning around again and heading to the car, and getting my 10 miles in that way.

I just want to note here that I think when you are running, your heart is so busy circulating blood to your muscles and lungs that it forgets about your brain. This decision should not have been hard to make. But we stood there for probably 5 minutes looking at that moose before I figured out what to do. I mean, really.

Mama moose + baby moose + barking dog = DISASTER!!!!
(Danger, Will Robinson!) 

That's a no brainer. Anyway, we did turn around and follow plan B, and the rest of the run went smoothly. I had Tailwind in my hydration bladder, and drank about a liter, which is less than I should have had, but not disastrously so, given the length of the run. I also had a Honey Stinger Waffle at about mile 5. My times were not bad at all, either. When considering only moving time  (not counting stops to let Daisy poop, or pee, or drink, or sniff other dogs, or stops for me to take pictures or look at moose) my  fastest mile was 9:29 (!!!), and my slowest mile was 10:50. I wore my new-ish Hoka Conquests, without my orthotics. My feet didn't hurt, my leg didn't go numb, and I didn't get shin splints. I think my feet, ankles, and legs are finally maybe getting to the point where I don't need the orthotics anymore. That is something I am very glad for. I felt great throughout the run. I think Daisy enjoyed it too:

Daisy's post-run nap

I think this run was a total success!

Wednesday weigh-in: Ready, Set...

So, a couple of posts ago, I talked about how my weight has creeped up in the last year or so, and how I think it has negatively affected my performance. I made a plan to work on getting leaner and stronger, and that begins today. My goal is to check in every Wednesday and see how it is going. My plan is going to have 4 components: diet, exercise, supplements and sleep.

1. Diet: Research consistently shows that (duh) diet is the #1 thing that affects weight, much more than exercise does. You simply can't outrun a poor diet, as my gradually increasing weight shows. So for the next little while, I'm really going to focus on the quality of my diet, and be very careful about what goes in my mouth.

About 3 years ago now, I lost about 45 pounds using Take Shape For Life. I was so impressed with the results and how easy it was once I got started, that I became a health coach for their program so that I could help other people lose weight. (Disclaimer here: I am still an independent health coach for Take Shape For Life.) Anyway, its worked for me in the past, I know the program, and I like the food, so that is going to be the basic plan I am following. The typical TSFL plan calls for a person to eat 5 of their meal replacements (using Medifast or the new, premium Optavia meal replacements), one optional snack, and one "Lean and Green" meal that you prepare yourself every day. There are over 90 different meal replacements, including your typical shakes and bars, soups, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, crunchy things like pretzel sticks, and several different baked things, like a brownie, chocolate chip cookie, blueberry muffin, or a cheddar cheese and rosemary biscuit (that one is one of the new premium Optavia meals, and it is to die for).  Besides the fact that the food actually tastes good to me, I like it because all of the meals are quick and easy to prepare, which is super important for me because with my hectic job, I am always on the go. I can stash a bar in my purse, and completely avoid the drive-throughs (totally my downfall) when I don't have time for a real meal. OK, unintentional infomercial over.

The typical 5&1 plan is intended for people that don’t really get a lot of exercise. It can support about 30 minutes a day of moderate intensity exercise, but if you are regularly doing more than that you are likely to find things going badly, because you are simply not taking in enough calories to support the increased effort. Because of this, I am going to be eating more than what the plan calls for. Depending on the day, I will simply be adding extra protein, eating an extra meal replacement or two, or adding an extra Lean and Green meal. On days where I am doing long runs, anything over an hour, I will be supplementing with running fuel in the form of Tailwind and/or chews, Honey Stinger waffles, etc, during my run. I also plan on drinking a high protein shake right after those runs when I can. This is a low carb / low fat / high protein meal plan. While I am on this plan, there will be no sugar, no bread, no potatoes, no pasta, no rice, yada, yada. This is a pretty restrictive plan, but I know I can follow it, because I've done it before, for a much longer period of time. I don't do as well with less restrictive plans, because I'm not all that great at moderation. If I'm going to do something, I'm all in. If I'm going to run a race, it might as well be a marathon or a 50 miler. If I'm going to eat pizza, I'm having 2 or 3 slices. I'm not good at "a little bit". I'm an all or nothing kind of girl.

2. Exercise: Right now, I run. Every once in a blue moon I will pull out my yoga mat and do yoga, but mostly, I run. I need to do more stuff.

I am still running at least one mile every day. Once a week I try to get a long run in, and I try to do 3 to 6 miles or so a few times a week. Now, I need to add strength training and flexibility. For flexibility, I love yoga, and so I plan to add yoga 3 times a week. I will be doing strength training 2 to 3 times per week. I have a little bit of time, about 45 minutes total, that I can use for working out after my 13 year old gets on the bus, before I go to work. I plan to use that time every day before work, except on days where I have to go in early. Sometimes I will have court early in the morning, or like tomorrow, I have to be there a few minutes early for a meeting that starts right at 9 am.

3. Supplements: With Take Shape For Life, each meal replacement is fortified with vitamins and minerals, so that if I am eating 5 meals a day, I don't need to take a multivitamin. But I do take specific supplements. I have low bone density, so I take calcium and garlic (which contains manganese). I take Vitamin D because pretty much everyone in Alaska has a Vitamin D deficiency, a Vitamin B complex, Vitamin C, magnesium, glucosamine for my joints, and fish oil for my connective tissue. I don't remember to take them terribly regularly, and I want to get better at that. Most people's diets, including mine, don't include enough of these things, especially for athletes that are placing high stresses on their bodies, and I think that if you give your body the things it needs to maintain itself, you are less injury prone.

4. Sleep. I am a night owl. I tend to stay up late, but then I am always super tired in the morning, because I have no choice but to get up early. I know good, sufficient sleep is critical both for recovery, and for weight loss. When I am too tired, my body (or maybe my brain, lol) really craves carbs as a source of quick energy, when what I really need is sleep. My goal is to get 8 hours of sleep each night, which means I need to be lights out by 11 pm.

SO... with all of that said, how am I doing today? Well, I went back to bed today after putting my son on the bus, instead of working out. But yesterday I did yoga, and the day before that I did a 30 minute strength training routine (Insanity Max:30 Tabata Power).  Tonight I ran 2 miles on the treadmill at the gym, in 19:23.

Because I overslept, I didn't weigh myself this morning, but based on my weights the last few mornings, I would guess I am right around 145, so I am going to use that. We will see how this week goes. I plan on posting an update every Wednesday, and I will call it the Wednesday Weigh-in. Wish me luck!

Gold Mint trail

On Saturday, I needed a place to do a midlength run, and I wanted to take Daisy with me, since she hasn't had a chance to run with me very much. The sun was shining and it was pretty warm out (about 63 degrees), so I decided that we needed to do some trail running. Hatcher Pass is always beautiful, but winter comes early up there. I figured there would not be too many more opportunities to run up there before the snow fell, so that's where we went. 

I decided to do the Gold Mint trail for several reasons. Its beautiful and the first several miles are very runnable, with lots of water for the dog. Also, it isn't very far up into the mountains, so I figured it would still be pretty warm. I was right about that, it was 61 degrees at the trailhead, only a couple degrees cooler than the valley below us. Perfect running weather.

Lots of other people clearly had the same idea I did, as the parking lot at the trailhead was packed and we saw lots of people (and lots of other dogs) on the trail. Daisy had to stop and socialize with every dog we saw, and play in every puddle and stream and beaver pond, so we stopped a lot. 

My original plan was to run to the 4 mile marker and back. We were doing pretty good, but just before the 3 mile marker I stopped and bent over a little to untangle Daisy's leash, which had become wrapped around her leg. (Warning: TMI) Anyway, as I bent over, my mouth suddenly was filled with stomach acid, and I felt like I was going to vomit. Ewww. I hate throwing up worse than almost anything, and I will do just about anything to avoid it. Anyway, I didn't know why I suddenly felt like that, since my bending over wasn't really that dramatic, I started to worry that maybe I was getting sick, and there is no cell phone service out there, and you know, I started being a worrywart. I decided to turn around at the 3 mile marker instead, just in case. 

We made it back to the trailhead without incident, or further stomach issues, though. 

I love this trail.  Like I said earlier, the first 4 miles or so are very runnable. The first mile is wide and gravelled, and then it narrows gradually to single track. 

The scenery is always beautiful, regardless of the season, with lots of mountains, and the trail pretty much follows the river.

There are a few bridges, and some boardwalk:

This run was a lot of fun for both of us, and only a half hour drive from my house. Daisy was a dirty, tired pup at the end of it. Proof positive that it was a good run.

Not quite where I wanted to be... but I have a plan

This summer, I ran several races, and had expectations of my performance for each one. All summer long, I ran, and for each race, my evaluation of my performance was "did not meet expectations". I thought I had set reasonable goals, but was not able to meet any of them except the Trent/Waldrun half marathon in May. On that race, I wanted to be faster than 2:20, and my time was 2:18:18. That was awesome.

In June, I ran the Anchorage Mayor's Marathon, and wanted to be faster than 5:00. My time was 5:26:43. That was a miserable race for me.

In July, I ran the Angel Creek 50, and DNF'd at mile 30.

In August, I ran the Anchorage Runfest 49k, and wanted to beat 6:00. My time was 6:24:01.

In September, I ran A Day at the Beach, a 12 hour race, and I really wanted to get 50 miles, but I knew that everything would have to go perfectly for that to happen. My B goal was to do at least 10 laps, or 43 miles. I ran 41.7.

I didn't have a terrible summer. I did work A LOT, which not only made me fall really behind on blogging, but was part of the performance problem, I think. Other than that, though, it was actually a really good summer and I had a lot of fun. My mom came to visit:

And so did my 21 year old son:

I did a lot of running (I only missed 4 days),  and some backpacking:

I had a lot of fun this summer. And even during my races, I was having fun. Well, with the notable exception of the Mayor's Marathon in June. (You can read about that here).  I think there were a few things going on this summer though, that negatively affected my performance.

Maybe one of the biggest factors was work. I worked A LOT of overtime this summer. There were so many day where my training plan called for, say, an 8 mile run, and I was lucky to get 1 or 2 miles after a late day at work. My job is also super high stress, because the decisions I make have huge impacts on peoples' lives, It is really difficult for me, sometimes impossible, to not work the long hours. And both my family and my running suffer when I do.

Another factor was my diet. As many of you know, I lost a significant amount of weight a few years ago, and I've mostly kept it off, by becoming active, and mostly staying away from fast food and junk food. In the last year or so, though, I've let that slip a lot, and I've put on 10 to 15 pounds. Hauling the extra weight around has to affect my speed.

The other factor, that really is probably a big one, and that I let myself forget when I get frustrated with my performance is that I am really new to running. I ran some the summer of 2014, but 2015 is when I really started getting serious about it. I ran my first marathon just a year ago. And 3 of the races where I didn't do as well as I wanted this summer were firsts in terms of distance for me.

When I ran the Angel Creek 50, I'd never run further than 28 miles. That day, I ran 30 or 31 miles, and DNF'd because I got lost in the fog, and then slowed down so much I could not meet the cutoff.

When I ran the Runfest 49k, that was the first ultramarathon I had ever completed, and the furthest I'd ever run on pavement. I also ran the last 10 miles of that race with excruciating foot pain, and still was less than a minute per mile off my goal time.

When I ran the 12 hour race, that was the first time I had run further than 31 miles, and the first time I had ever run a race for time, and the setup was completely different than I had experienced before. Like really, I should be freaking proud of myself for running over 40 miles. Not beating myself up because I missed 43 miles by less than a mile and a half.

SO, I have a plan. It's sort of got 3 parts.

1. Manage my nutrition and training better. Get more strength workouts in, make time for longer runs, get enough sleep, and get back in control of my diet. That's the physical aspect, and one I can take total control of.

2. Manage my time better. Work smarter, not harder. Find ways to get things done faster, so I have to work less overtime. And sometimes, even if I don't get everything done, leave work anyway. It will still be there tomorrow, most of the time. I've been doing this long enough to know when it is really important enough to stay late for.  This not only gives me more time for my fitness, and for my family, but it will also reduce my stress.

3. Give myself a break. At mile 37 of the race this weekend, I was feeling all disappointed in myself, because I knew I wouldn't have time for another lap. I decided I wasn't going to run any more races until I got stronger and faster. But you know what? Instead of feeling disappointed, I should have been so amazed at myself. I was running MILE 37 of a race, and I was STILL RUNNING. I was still smiling, and I was still enjoying the run. At that point I had run 7 miles more than I'd ever run before, and way farther than most people ever will or could run. Why I let that negative self talk in, I don't know. I have to learn to be kind to myself.

And really, when all is said and done, I had a great summer. I spent time with family, I spent time outdoors in this beautiful Alaskan summer, and I did a whole lot of running. I just haven't had time to blog about it all yet, but I will. I'm grateful for all that I was able to do this summer, and I'm already planning next summer's adventures...

Oh, and there's a trail marathon coming up...